Random Ramblings from Mom about biking, kids, and food, with the occasional sprinkling of science fiction references. It's all good!

Master bedroom

January 13, 2013

by Erin B

I feel like I need to start this post with a disclaimer. My house was a show home with a bunch of upgrades. In 1963. One of those upgrades was a master en suite. In 1963, in this part of the world, that was very unusual. VERY unusual. So that it is 4′ x 6′ and therefore smaller than a modern closet is less surprising than that it exists at all.

While we are on the subject of closets, I have one. It isn’t a walk in. I don’t have his and hers. I have A closet. It is a small closet, 42″ across. People in the 1960’s had less stuff…. which is also the only way I can explain the three cupboard kitchen. I guess, technically it is a seven cupboard kitchen, but two are under the sink, one is only big enough for a couple of cookie sheets and has plumbing running through it and one is in the corner and is a right pain to access making it long term and over flow storage. I have three functional bottom cupboards, three functional top cupboards and some open shelving.

My whole house is JUST over 1000 sq feet. Which means that the master bedroom is barely big enough for a queen bed. Really, in 1963, a double bed was more standard. When we were looking for bedroom furniture, we looked at 20 or 30 bedroom sets and chose the ONE that was small enough that all the furniture would fit in the room. It was a field of one. And even then, to make it work, we had to take off the closet doors. Amazingly enough, there are actually two ways to fit everything in…. but that is it. The two ways it can fit is with the bed on the outside wall with no windows and we have to squeeze past the dresser to get to the bathroom or the current set up where one bedside table can’t be next to the bed.

Yes… this is a long disclaimer.

But the internet is full of blogs where the master suite is close to the size of my whole house. Or at least three or four times as big as my room. I enjoy reading Mini Manor, but…. I can’t see her house being any less than twice as big as our place. This seems pretty standard. A quick look at new builds in our city shows that 1800 square feet seems to be about standard for current show homes. Even the tiny town houses have 1300 – 1500 square feet of living area. So before I get to pictures, I want to set up some realistic expectations.

I have to still put in a word about decorating on a budget. Our budget is about zero. Or whatever I can sneak out of the grocery budget without having us starve. It drives me nuts when people talk about decorating cheaply with paint, then spend hundreds of dollars on the stuff.

The duvet ($40) and it’s cover ($17) are from Costco, as is the furniture. The curtains I made from some “additional 50% off” sets I found in the clearance isle for less than $20 a set. All the art work is wedding presents from artsy people I grew up with, except for the second hand shop print that I bought in Halifax. The floor lamp ($10) I ordered from Ikea in the 90’s and keep schlepping it around with me.

It is very functional, and I am happy to be in this room…. but magazine pretty it is NOT. So… here we go. Four pictures, one from each corner of the room:

This is the view from the door.

Moving clockwise, the view from the bathroom door

The view towards the hallway

The view from the closet.

From here you can see the en suite door. The door is only 24 inches wide. People were smaller in the 1960’s too. There you have it, all 120 square feet of my room. (10×12)….. which really…. is bigger than those tiny house trailers…..

Things I really do like about this house…. The windows. OK, so they were draughty and cold and we had to spend years replacing them all, but they are designed in such a way to let in lots of light, but are positioned so that if you are walking around any of the bedrooms in your birthday suit with the curtains wide open, the neighbours can’t see in. Hey…. it WAS the 60’s after all.